Tip one: a lot of times there is a small trash filter inside of HVLP sprayers that can get nearly plugged. This allows for only a small amount of materials to be sprayed. Even if you clean the gun after each use it still tends to get plugged. Take the gun apart and remove the filter, it’s in the supply line that goes to the cup below the trigger assembly. After doing so you MUST filter all materials you put in the gun, and still clean the gun like crazy! Most coatings that I’ve used seem to have glue like properties that clog the internal filters of these guns and if it once gets dried in that filter no amount of cleaning is going to dislodge it.
Tip two: lots of HVLP guns have a relatively small delivery orifice, 1.5, 1.7 mm, which is ok for thin materials, not particularly so for thicker materials like BC’s Timeless or Glamour 2 even diluted, I shoot Timeless straight. Before I figured out about the internal filters and went to a large orifice it would take 10 or 15 minutes to get a single full coverage coating down and if I was not careful I’d get some texturing (think orange peel) that I didn’t want or like. Check to see if the gun you are using has a larger orifice and needle available. I use a 2.8 or 3.0 mm orifice I can’t remember exactly which. I can put on a good heavy coat in 30 second to a minute for a 40 x40 canvas without runs or drips. Wait 15 and coat again, done. If the materials you are spraying are almost dry on contact, you are not spraying enough material, get a bigger orifice for your gun or a different gun all together. I prefer to use compressed air automotive primer guns, as you can spray heavy materials quickly, they have big orifices and you can get larger replacements as well. The electric style HVLP (Wagner airless?) guns are OK if you are only squirting one or two canvases at a time, but if you have to do 10 or 15 possibly more in a day it gets really old really fast.
Tip three: Don’t try and spray from too far away, 8” to a foot at most is generally where you need to have the gun positioned for best coverage, any more and the materials have a tendency to fly and dry, i.e. lots of over spray and doesn’t give a full coat in one pass. This is particularly the case with guns with smaller orifices. Some guns with small orifices may need to be held inside of 6” of the canvas to work well/OK.
Tip four: No fanning, meaning keep the gun square and perpendicular to the canvas surface at 8” to a foot with no wrist action at the end of travel. Overlap each pass by a third to a half of the previous. Spray a good bit past the edges as well.
So there you go.
Later Larry
